HUMAN NATURE IN
THE BIBLE

BY
WILLIAM LYON PHELPS
LAMPSON PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT YALE

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK • LONDON
1923

Printed in the United States of America

Published October, 1922

TO
MY FRIEND
FRANK BERGEN

A POSTSCRIPT BY WAY OF PREFACE

I have done: and if any blames me,
Thinking that merely to touch in brevity
    The topics I dwell on, were unlawful--
Or worse, that I trench, with undue levity,
    On the bounds of the holy and the awful--
I praise the heart, and pity the head of him,
And refer myself to THEE, instead of him,
Who head and heart alike discernest,
    Looking below light speech we utter,
    When frothy spume and frequent sputter
Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest!
May truth shine out, stand ever before us!
    --Christmas Eve, by ROBERT BROWNING.

p.xiii

CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION	v
I. THE CREATION AND THE FLOOD	3
II. FOUR GREAT PERSONALITIES--ABRAHAM, ISAAC, JACOB, JOSEPH	21
III. MOSES AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS	47
IV. FAMOUS FIGHTERS IN CANAAN	77
V. RUTH, ELI, SAMUEL, JONATHAN AND KING SAUL	101
VI. KING DAVID	123
VII. SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY--THE ROMANTIC FIGURE OF ELIJAH	151
VIII. THE PROPHET ELISHA	181
IX. DOWNFALL OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH--THE PATRIOTIC STORIES OF DANIEL AND ESTHER	213
X. THE APOCRYPHA	247
XI. WISDOM AND PHILOSOPHY--PROVERBS AND ECCLESIASTES	277
XII. HUMAN NATURE REVEALED IN POETRY--JOB, SONG OF SONGS, PSALMS, ISAIAH	305

HUMAN NATURE IN THE BIBLE

HUMAN NATURE IN
THE BIBLE